In a disk-storage system, either magnetic or optical, the servo scheme plays an extremely important role. An efficient servo scheme will increase not only the data density but also the system performance, such as access time. In current magnetic recording technology, the sampled-servo scheme makes it impossible to achieve high track density; this is because the increasing sampling frequency leads to gains the track density but, at the same time, enlarges the overhead. With the present servo schemes, continuous servo does not leave any space for data.
In contrast, in optical disk data storage, a continuous servo signal is obtained from the diffraction of the pre-grooved substrate. The track densities are many times higher than in magnetic hard disk drive (HDD). If the HDD could achieve the same track density as the optical drive, the recording density could be significantly increased.
In this application, we report an invention to provide a continuous servo signal for HDD without increasing the overhead; in fact, the current overhead associated with sampled servo is eliminated.